


if I only could I'd make a deal with God (and I'd get him to swap our places)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: their smiles shaped wrong [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Mystic Force
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Avoxes, Bowen and Leanbow still go missing, Chip is Udonna and Leanbow's Son, Dark, District 7, Minor Character Death, Mother-Son Relationship, Udonna is a Mentor in the Games, Udonna is a Victor of the hunger games, mentions of Tyler Navarro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-12 16:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19949161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Then, a month before the Fifty Third Games, Leanbow and Bowen disappeared the same night. Udonna woke up one morning to find Leanbow’s side of the bed barren and Bowen’s crib empty.They found Leanbow’s sleeping shirt in a nearby forest a few weeks after that, stained in blood, with Bowen’s red blanket dirt-stained underneath of it.Udonna had collapsed when she’d heard the news. Both of her boys, gone without a moment’s notice. Dead without even bodies to bury. All because of Leanbow’s complaints and herself being too clever for the Gamemakers.For sixteen years after that night, she did nothing but Mentor children to their deaths, seeking to somehow bring home the one child who could possibly make up for the child of her own that she’d lost far too early. She could never do enough to save them- the kids were untrained, underfed, undersponsored- but she tried her best. Thirty two children went to their deaths, some quick, some slow and painful, all because Udonna couldn’t figure out ways to save them, no matter how hard she tried.(Udonna as a Victor, and the revelations the Seventieth Hunger Games bring her about the true fate of her husband and her son.)





	if I only could I'd make a deal with God (and I'd get him to swap our places)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Running Up That Hill" by Placebo.
> 
> Once again dragging in my headcanon that Chip was really Udonna and Leanbow's son, because I will keep writing that into Mystic Force fics until the end of time.

_The seas are wide,_

_the oceans are deep,_

_and demons lurk in the waters that separate us._

_But nothing compares to the monster I will become,_

_if the world does not give you back to me_

**_— you don’t know fear until you know me -[c.k](http://widowbitesandhearingaids.tumblr.com/)_ **

When Udonna had won the Forty-Eighth Games, she hadn’t been ecstatic, of course. After all, she’d won the Games off of the girl from One that she’d used a forcefield to slice open with her own ax, and all of the pure white interview dresses in Panem couldn’t get rid of that fact.

But she  _ was _ eighteen when she won, and thus she could get married to Leanbow when she got back. And, lucky for her, he hadn’t been disgusted by what she’d done to survive, instead just accepting her and what she’d done and promising that he’d continue to love her just as he’d done before her name had been called.

They’d been married a month after her Victory Interview, in a small ceremony with just their friends and no family, given that they had grown up in the Community Home and all. Nothing special enough for the Capitol to even send a camera crew to watch, even though she was the newest Victor the Capitol had to offer.

In the weeks after that, the Capitol doctors had warned Udonna that there was a very small likelihood of her having children, and that if she  _ did _ decide to have kids, then the pregnancy would most likely be a rather rough one. Udonna and Leanbow had kept trying, though, wanting at least one child to cherish and love like they hadn’t been as orphans in the Community Home.

Along the way, Udonna had had a decent number of nightmares about her child’s name getting called in the Reaping, but she’d reassured herself with the fact that there were thousands upon thousands of children in District Seven and that her child would never have to take out the tesserae on her Victor’s stipend. Her child would want for nothing and never get their name pulled, and they’d live happily as a family, the three of them.

And so Bowen was born in the middle of the night, halfway between the Fifty Second Victory Tour and the Fifty Third Games. A girl from One had just passed through on her Victory Tour a few months beforehand- a pretty girl named Jen who had a wicked talent with throwing knives, a natural leadership ability among the Career pack, and a determination in her eyes that had shocked everyone but previous Victors- and so there wasn’t much Games-related to taint Bowen with. There was just a pretty rough labor, but even that was almost nothing compared to the three weeks that her Games had lasted. 

For a few months after Bowen’s birth, they’d been happy. Leanbow had even toned down his usual complaints about the Capitol, just a bit, and Udonna’s cleverness in the Arena seemed to have been forgotten. The three of them were a happy little family, living off of Udonna’s Victors’ winnings, and they’d even gotten into the habit of visiting the Community Home every other week to see what the parcels from Udonna’s winning were doing for the children there.

Then, a month before the Fifty Third Games, Leanbow and Bowen disappeared the same night. Udonna woke up one morning to find Leanbow’s side of the bed barren and Bowen’s crib empty.

They found Leanbow’s sleeping shirt in a nearby forest a few weeks after that, stained in blood, with Bowen’s red blanket dirt-stained underneath of it.

Udonna had collapsed when she’d heard the news. Both of her boys, gone without a moment’s notice. Dead without even bodies to bury. All because of Leanbow’s complaints and herself being too clever for the Gamemakers.

Udonna spent a decent portion of the Fifty Third Games drugged to the gills, sedated to keep from sobbing through interviews with sponsors. Her family had been declared officially dead the day before she left the train station in Seven, and she knew it was her fault for being too clever in the Games but she’d also thought she was safe, that everyone had forgotten about the little girl from Seven.

For sixteen years after that night, she did nothing but Mentor children to their deaths, seeking to somehow bring home the one child who could possibly make up for the child of her own that she’d lost far too early. She could never do enough to save them- the kids were untrained, underfed, undersponsored- but she tried her best. Thirty two children went to their deaths, some quick, some slow and painful, all because Udonna couldn’t figure out ways to save them, no matter how hard she tried.

During the years in between, she mostly just kept to her home alone in the Victor’s Village. No one visited her- no one  _ wanted _ to visit the ghost haunting the Village, the woman cursed by the Capitol to lose everyone that she loved.

She stopped visiting the Community Home. There were no more parcels to give to the children, there. Her husband, who had grown up there just as she had, was gone. Her child, who she’d been certain she’d be able to rescue from a fatal destiny like so many kids in the Home experienced, was gone as well.

All the Home brought her was sorrow and grief.

-

It is only seventeen years later, when Udonna is having to guide Chip- a boy from Seven’s orphanage- and Leelee- a merchant girl- through the Mentoring process, that Udonna’s world is turned upside down for the third time.

First, when she heard her name called by their District’s Escort. Second, when her boys disappeared. Third, when on the eve of the Seventy Second Games, Udonna is dealt two blows in turn, each as nauseating as the last.

The first is that her beloved husband, who’d always been too righteous and stubborn for his own good, was not dead, but instead turned into an Avox. The President sends the all-too-familiar-looking Avox to Seven’s Games apartment the moment that Chip and Leelee return from the Parade, yellow and green glitter still clinging to their skin like lightning striking a tree in the forest.

Udonna looks up from her meals and her glass of wine falls from her hand to shatter against the ground. She stares for a few moments as the Avox- with a face of features all too familiar and all too beloved- before any actual thought processes kick in.

She knows the protocol with Avoxes, after all, twenty one years in the Captiol has taught her that. She knows that any sign of recognizing who they are, of giving them any kind of preference, will lead to said Avox disappearing from the location they are currently stationed in.

And Udonna, fundamentally, is selfish when it comes to what remnants of a family she still has. She isn’t going to let Leanbow, in whatever form he still holds, get taken away from her.

So Udonna sits back in her chair and gives both of her tributes- bright-eyed, bright-haired Chip and dark-eyed, fair-haired Leelee- a smile of reassurance. “Sorry,” she says, “Just a slip of the fingers.” An easy dismissal, taking any blame away from a dead man she might have recognized.

She begins to make plans to deal with this later. To see if she can find some way- any way- to somehow rescue and save Leanbow, to get him away from the Capitol. She falls asleep to dreams of their wedding and Bowen in her arms, the three of them living happily together.

Too bad that every plan flies out of her head the next day, when she receives a second piece of incendiary news.

There are blood tests when all the tributes enter training, checking for diseases and the like. It’s become routine, after that little snafu with the boy in the Fifty Ninth Games who’d died of the flu literally the morning of the Games, leaving the Capitol scrambling to find a replacement.

And it’s these blood tests that reveal to her the second fact, which is that the boy she is set to Mentor, the boy with such potential and a wide smile that could charm anybody he came in contact with- that boy is her biological son. This Chip, with his blindingly red hair and brilliant smile and bright eyes- he’s Bowen. He’s hers.

Udonna has to swallow back a scream. She has her boy back, but he’s going into that Arena, which she’s never brought a kid back from. Chip- Bowen- whatever the kid’s name is- he’s got his death certificate already signed and stamped with her as his Mentor. She’s failed at this job for sixteen years. What guarantee does she have to bring home her son, to give her enough time to actually be a mother of sorts?

But then she watches the parade, watches her son in his cloaked paper costume, and resolve enters her bones, etching itself through her like it did back in the Arena when she’d decided that she’d do anything to live.

She is going to bring her son home, there’s no question about it. She  _ has _ to. She can’t let the shock and grief over her husband’s transformation bog her down. She can’t let sixteen years of failure make her doubt herself.

She’s going to find a way to somehow use Chip’s talents, whatever they are- his innate charisma, perhaps, his skill with an ax, maybe- to scoop him up Sponsorships and get him through the Arena. He’s her son. Despite how much she may want him to be nothing more than her little, innocent boy, he’s got to have some of her killer instinct. He’s got to have some of the drive that got her through the Games, that allowed her to return home to Leanbow.

Finding out that Chip has a girlfriend back home- a girl named Vida, the daughter of a lumberjack- isn’t that much of a surprise. Finding out about his boyfriend- a boy named Xander, the son of a Merchant-  _ is _ . 

But she’s not going to judge Chip. She’s his mother, for whatever that means, and she just wants him safe. And if using these two other teenagers to convince her son to become a killer means that he can return home, then she’ll be plenty thankful for it.

“You’ve gotta win for your family and those you love,” she says to the bright-eyed boy in front of her the night before the interviews. “If you love them, you’re going to make it home.”

“Like you and your husband?” Leelee asks, eyes sharp and unforgiving, and Udonna knows that Leelee’s the daughter of the butcher, who has no love for her daughter. Leelee hasn’t lived a very good life so far, and she’s unlikely to live one going forward.

Udonna knows that she’s sacrificing the girl- Leelee- to keep her son safe, and in any other year she might feel guilty for it. But now that her son is in the Games, there’s just no other option. She’s going to do everything fucking possible to bring that boy home.

(Leanbow’s an Avox who she can never get to again. Chip is all she has left of her humanity and Leanbow’s love.)

The Hunger Games is not about being kind. It’s about making the worst possible decisions and having to live with them.

So Udonna looks at Leelee and she nods. “Like Leanbow and I,” she confirms, glancing back at Chip.

-

During the Games, Leelee survives for a full week beyond the Bloodbath, eventually dying in a duel against the Careers. Udonna can’t help but be proud of her, this girl with the sharp eyes and the cruel mother (though she knows that she was never going to send Leelee sponsor gifts when she could give that bare amount of money to Chip). This is the longest that Udonna has ever carried two tributes before. Usually her kids die in the Bloodbath, dead and forgotten, but this year Leelee and Chip- with his one ally- have been getting pretty far in the Game.

Then Udonna focuses her attention on her other screen, the one showing Chip and his ally from District Nine, a boy named Tyler. She has to get Chip through- she just  _ has _ to.

-

Then, a week later, the boy from Four kills Chip’s ally and nearly Chip as well with a well-aimed slash across his stomach, and the only reason Udonna’s boy is still alive is because he manages to shove his ax through the boy from Four’s throat before he delivers the death stroke.

Chip collapses from the wound on his stomach, and Udonna knows that he needs medicine, and fast. But she also knows that Seven doesn’t have enough money to keep her son alive- they never have, and they never will. But that doesn’t matter to her. Nothing matters save bringing that boy home.

So she goes to Maga from Eight, the oldest Victor still alive, who has spent more time around Sponsors than anyone else in the room.

“I don’t care if District Seven loses the next ten Hunger Games,” she says, “That boy needs to live.”

“I can get you the Sponsors you need,” she says, “But it will cost you everything you are.” Maga looks Udonna straight in the eyes. “Are you sure you’re willing to do this?”

“Damn everything else,” Udonna says, “I  _ need _ that boy to come home. I know no one will understand, but I have to bring him back.”

Maga just nods, letting out a small sigh. “Alright,” she says, “I will get your boy the money for the medicine he needs.”

And within six hours, the money to buy the medicine pops onto Udonna’s screen. As she clicks it to send it into the Arena, she knows she has just sold her soul (and probably her body) to whatever sponors gave her that money, but she doesn’t care. Her boy is going to live.

-

Two weeks later, as she watches her son behead the boy from Eleven, Udonna can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Chip is coming home, and she may have sold her soul and her body and her next ten years worth of tributes to the Sponsors to do it, but he’s alive and that’s all that matters.

She’s going to be able to tell him the truth. She’s going to get to watch him jump over the tree branches with Vida and Xander, get to see him grow old and  _ live _ .

(She’s also going to get to watch him through nightmares, watch him deal with being a killer just like her, but that’s okay because he’s  _ alive _ and that’s what matters.)

For a few weeks, though, the two of them have to stay in the Capitol, attending parties with Chip’s sponsors and other fawning Capitolites. At night they stay in Seven’s apartments int he Games Complex, and she gets to know Chip a little better over that time. She learns about his love of the sci-fi shows he occasionally gets to see from the Capitol, about the girlfriend and boyfriend he loves so much, about how he managed to not starve in the orphanage by taking out the tesserae he never should have had to. She learns about his loves- Xander, Vida, sci-fi, pizza, marshmallows, paper airplanes- and his dislikes- the desert, death, nightmares, potatoes. All in all, quite fruitful conversations are had between them.

It is also during this time that Udonna realizes that her son, her husband, and herself are all alive and in the same building for the first time in seventeen years, and she’s the only one who knows.

Udonna sucks in a deep breath. In only a few weeks, she’ll be home in Seven with Chip, where she can tell him about everything. She can help him move into his home in the Village, meet Vida and Xander, and she’ll be able to tell him everything without having to worry as much about paparazzi. He’ll have a space of his own to process the information, to figure out what kind of relationship he wants with her.

She’ll be leaving Leanbow behind for now, as they head back to Seven, but she’ll find him again, she knows.

-

“Chip,” Udonna says the day she helps him move his, Vida, and Xander’s meager belongings into Chip’s new house in the Village. “I have something to tell you.”

Chip sets down the bowl that Vida’s mother gave them for the new house. “Yes, Udonna?” he asks with a smile and trusting eyes, and she thinks about how he trusts her because she got him through the Games.

“They have blood tests for tributes when they enter the training portion of the Games, and the tests picked up on something rather important.” Udonna says, and Vida and Xander both look up, concern clearly splashed across their faces. Well, that they care so clearly about Chip- that’s definitely a point in their favor.

Chip, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too concerned, yet. His expression is curious rather than worried. “What was it?”

Udonna takes a deep breath and then quickly spits out the news: “That you’re my son.”

Now,  _ this _ seems to make an impact on Chip. His eyes go wide, and she can practically see the gears turning in his brain as he thinks back over the stories of what happened to her son, all of those years ago.

“I thought that he’d died,” Chip says quietly, after a few moments, and Udonna nods.

“So did I,” she says. “They found his blanket next to Leanbow’s bloodied clothing, and so I’d thought…”

Vida glances between the two of them. From what Chip told her, Udonna knows that her family and his friendship with her is what kept him from completely starving as a young child. He later worked the lumber yards, chopping down trees, saving up whatever money he could that wasn’t devoted to keeping him alive and not starving. The money had been for a house for the three of them, and all three of them had contributed to the saving…

Her thoughts are getting distracted from the matter at hand. She focuses back on Chip, whose expression of confusion is gradually shifting into a smile. “I have a mom,” he says, voice flooding with happiness, and a moment later his arms are wrapped tightly around her.

Udonna hasn’t been hugged in seventeen years. She has had neither son nor husband to hug her, to reassure her, to love her. To finally have Chip (because he hasn’t been Bowen in seventeen years, even if he is definitely her son) back is like every dream being answered, a balm over nearly all of her wounds. His hug feels like coming home, like the world is finally righting itself after over two decades of feeling the monster.

“You have a mother,” she agrees, and hugs him right back.

They’re both killers, her boy and her, but they have each other, now. And Chip has Vida and Xander. And that has to be enough, for now, for their tiny Victor’s Village with just the two of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys all enjoyed this update! I know I've been a bit slow, but I hope you guys enjoyed this update anyway!
> 
> Victors introduced in this fic:  
> 48th Games: Udonna, from District Seven  
> 52nd: Jen Scotts, from District One  
> 70th: Chip Thorn, from District Seven
> 
> Tributes who died in the Games:  
> 70th: Leelee Primavare, from District Seven  
> 70th: Tyler Navarro, from District Nine


End file.
